Strange Wasp Behaviour.

Head Hunting Wasps.

Many years ago, (here he goes again), we became plagued by wasps, and my wife forced me into the bathroom, (which was the worst effected) with a rolled up newspaper. After about 10 minutes of valiant efforts, I emerged triumphantly, having killed about 20 wasps. About halve an hour later, I re-entered the bathroom to clear away the bodies.

On arriving at the window area where most of the dead wasps were, I noticed about 6 more active wasps which seemed to be foraging amongst the dead ones. Closer scrutiny showed that these wasps were cutting off the heads of the dead ones and carrying them away, leaving the bodies behind for me to clear away. On the assumption that the wasps were not carrying out head transplantation, has anyone come across this behaviour and has a more logical explanation?

Wasp Survival.

This happened not 8 feet away from my above battle with the wasps, and happened about the same period. My first ever vehicle was a WW2 Ford Jeep. This had been fitted with a van body. After a few years I decided to strip off the van body and put the jeep back into its original condition. After stripping off the body I detached the windscreen assembly. Underneath the this assembly I found a wasp, apparently dead, that had been trapped beneath the Sorbo rubber seal.  I left the wasp where it was and carried on working.

After about an hour and a half I noticed that the wasp was twitching. Some three hours later the wasp was capable of flying away.

I did some checks on the jeep assembly to see if the wasp could have got into its position after the van body had been fitted, but there was no possible access. This meant that the wasp had been trapped under the seal for just under 5 years!

No water, no light, no food!  High temperatures from the sun and engine in summer and freezing temperatures in winter.

For 5 years! Tough eh.